Five years following its ban on smoking in restaurants and other public spaces, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will start enforcing the rules. By year end, government will also revoke licenses which allow an estimated 6,000 coffee shops to serve sheesha (the Middle Eastern water pipe used for tobacco smokes).
As hummus, a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine, gains popularity among Americans seeking healthful snacks, tobacco farmers open their fields to chick peas and Pepsico undertakes to develop new hummus food science with an Israeli company, Strauss. Both businesses see massive potential in developing American chick pea strains for a number of good reasons, some perhaps less good. […]
If new anti-smoking images slapped on Jordan’s smokes don’t help puffers kick the habit, maybe Jordan should look Down Under for greater motivation: Beginning this year, as part of Jordan’s obligations to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the Ministry of Health asked cigarette companies to feature graphic anti-smoking images on cigarette […]
There’s a new hookah on the street and she leaves without a trace… on your lungs. Shiazo Steam Stone Shisha provides a new smoking experience that uses Pressure Injection Method (PIM) technology developed in Germany to deliver a burn and stink-free smoke that feels and tastes like the real thing. Recently introduced in the United Arab […]
A 45 minute shisha session is the equivalent of puffing 100 cigarettes. In a new study, Iranian researchers proved tobacco water pipes are as harmful as cigarettes, saying, “Our findings reveal profound effects of water pipe smoking on lung function, similar to the effects observed in deep inhalation cigarette smokers.” A student at Amman’s American Community School […]
Nearly seven percent of adolescent Iraqis have smoked shisha, and more than three percent have smoked tobacco, raising concerns among health officials about future diseases that could arise as a result. This was one of the findings of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey carried out recently by Iraq’s Ministry of Health. Shisha, also known as […]
I just spit out my coffee. About to move house for the fifth time in as many years, I take a day to escape the cardboard box Himalayas towering in the living room. Plus there’s heavy construction going on next door, and it sounds like all of Amman’s stray cats are in heat. I grab a laptop and […]
This guy may look kind of sexy with his pipe, but the BBC unveils just how toxic smoking shisha really is. It’s always been a source of curiosity to me that even my health-conscious friends in the Middle East rarely pass up an opportunity to suck on a shisha pipe – as though that seductive […]